New Mexico’s 2025 Measles Outbreak: 99 Cases and a Statewide Push to Vaccinate

Measles is a highly contagious virus that can cause large outbreaks, serious complications, hospitalization and death. It was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000. Its symptoms include fever, malaise, cough, runny nose (coryza) and conjunctivitis, then Koplik spots and a maculopapular rash. Symptoms usually appear 11–12 days after exposure (range 7–21). Two doses of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine are about 97% effective, and are recommended for everyone 12 months and older.

In 2025 the United States had its most measles cases and outbreaks since 1992 — including New Mexico's first outbreak since 1996, part of a large outbreak that began in west Texas in January.

How it unfolded

Measles cases by onset date and cumulative MMR doses given in New Mexico, 2025, compared with the same period in 2024. CDC.

The cases

From February 9 to August 10, 99 outbreak-related cases were reported from eight counties.

• Two thirds (67.7%) of patients lived in Lea County.
• 16 (16.2%) had traveled to Texas during their incubation period — 20.9% of Lea County patients.
• The median age was 20 (range 4 months to 62 years); about half of cases were in adults.
• 85.8% were unvaccinated (57.6%) or of unknown status (28.3%); 14 had a record of at least one measles vaccine dose.

Getting the word out

New Mexico is large and rural, so the health department used many channels at once:

• 12 Health Alert Network advisories, 26 press releases, 184 social media posts, immunization-registry newsfeeds and emails, TV public service announcements and local radio;
• a measles webpage with case counts, guidance for health care settings, workplaces and schools, and upcoming clinics;
• an English–Spanish helpline, set up during COVID-19, where staff could look up a caller's measles vaccination record, notify people who had been exposed and find nearby vaccination sites. It took 2,004 measles calls from January 31 to August 24.

Getting shots in arms

• Providers in the Vaccines for Children program and the Section 317 program (federal grants for vaccines for underinsured or uninsured adults and for outbreak response) could order MMR vaccine immediately, at no cost, without waiting for the usual monthly order.
• Registry data on local coverage and vaccine stock helped target mobile vaccination to areas with cases or below-average coverage.
• From February 15 to August 24, the department held 60 mobile MMR clinics in 11 counties — at schools, public health offices, correctional facilities and community centers and events — and communities without cases could request them too.

When the outbreak began, 92% of children and 51% of adults statewide had a record of at least one MMR dose. From January 1 to September 26, 2025, 61,592 MMR doses were given — 55% more than the 39,847 in the same period of 2024.

Lessons

• There were no school outbreaks in Lea County despite community spread, likely thanks to high coverage: 94% of school-age children had at least one dose, and 96.6% of Lea County kindergartners had two.
• The 51% adult figure probably understates adult immunity, since the registry misses past infections and older vaccinations. Still, the many adult cases and sustained spread suggest that high county-wide coverage hid pockets of undervaccination.
• Coordinated communication and easier vaccine access — built on COVID-19 experience — helped vaccination rise quickly statewide, and could be a model for other states.
• New Mexico recommends two doses of measles vaccine for everyone 12 months and older. Doses given before 12 months don't count toward those two.

Sources

Based on Stanislawski E, Romero A, Holzinger N, et al., "Measles Outbreak — New Mexico, 2025," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain.